Szbeylik

Atheist travel nurses? í ½í¸‚

Seriously...? this is so ridiculous. What people will put up with in the name of religion... uh oh. Can of worms opened....

Perhaps you should seek a type of job that fits your schedule if this is so important to you. I had to accommodate to my kids and our custody schedule; I had to be off certain days to be with them. Wouldn't have missed that for anything. So I worked registry for years and got to pick my days. Just depends on how important it is for you....

Sad to hear your story. What do you do now?

Wow... boy am I glad I don't have to work with you. What an unpleasant, arrogant, nasty attitude you have about your fellow nurses... I did agency work for a few years to match my custody schedule and be with my kids as much as possible. I think I know you...! You were one of those nurses giggling with your friends watching me struggle with the hardest patients, purposefully not lending a hand or pretending to be busy with your feet on the table, eating a snack or browsing Facebook when I asked you for help.

And that's exactly her point. We shouldn't be responsible making sure that those things are done. The DOC needs to be responsible. My job is to carry out his orders, not to guess what his orders would be and then suggest them. They are taking advantage of the people who cater to them that way and then it becomes a culture. And if there are a few nurses who actually stick to their guns they will become the Problem People.

Hello All, I need advice. At my previous employer, it was standard procedure to remove waffle mattresses from under the patient as soon as they arrived and were placed to the alternating pressure ICU bed. Which makes sense, as the waffle mattress nullifies the benefits and features of an expensive high functioning bed. At my new employment however, people religiously place a waffle mattress over ICU beds and swear by it being better for the patients because the ICU beds are "too hard". I tried to explain this to someone who nearly wrote an incident report on me for not using a waffle mattress on a patient with advanced Multiple Sclerosis, who was already in the alternating pressure ICU bed. I work in a rural hospital where the latest trends in evidence based practice are not always readily available and implemented, so I'd like some feedback to see what others do in other hospitals... Thanks for for your time!

About two months ago I was in the exact same place. I had the same bitter feelings. I was depressed, exhausted, burnt out and hopeless. I worked for a big private hospital, in a busy ICU. Acuity was high and it got higher over the last few years. The workload would have been manageable but the management gave us little support, constant new expectations, nonsense rules and regulations that made our work much harder than it ever had to be. Just as an example; we couldn't keep spare supplies in patient rooms, even in the locked cabinets that were installed for that reason just 2 years ago. Can't keep even saline flushes, nor could we carry it in our pockets; if we were seen with them we would be reprimanded. You were watched, criticized, talked to only if something was off, always looking for mistakes. We haven't had a staff meeting in years, no one listened to or care about our needs. The cherry on top was when they changed the charge nurse arrangement and decided to have designated charge nurses instead of rotation of the more experienced ones, which was the long standing tradition. Without first talking to the staff, one day these people who have done charge in some cases for 15 plus years just received an email, in which they were told that they are no longer going to have this role. Instead, they chose their favorites, who were more willing to kiss up to managers and more willing to throw anyone under the bus to be a favorite. One of them was a younger nurse who just started there less than a year ago. One of the nurses who had been doing charge asked the manager why she wasn't chosen. The answer was: "because you are *****-faced", whatever that was supposed to mean. She was supportive to other nurses and well liked by her peers, she had no attitude issues that I could recall. BUT even if she did... This tone is so out of line, I couldn't believe it when I heard the story. I encouraged her to report it to HR and to speak to a union rep, she just said she has children to feed and needs her job. That was the last straw for me, I needed to leave. The morale was so low, people were unhappy, scared, whispering in groups, tired, disgruntled, everyone kept talking about wanting to leave. I had enough. I was so depressed working there, I seriously considered leaving nursing all together. I heard similar stories from my friends working in different hospitals. I saw no way out. Then I decided to give it one more try and I applied and got hired to a smaller rural hospital, where the pace is much slower, people are relaxed and happy, workload is manageable, and what I do is appreciated and respected. I have time to be with my patients, I can pamper them and see the person in them, like a nurse should. I enjoy nursing now. I noticed that the overall company attitude is different, not just the pace. I've only been there about a month, so things can change, but right now I am so happy I made the leap. Unfortunately, I don't think that this is the way out for most of us. This job was unique and most nursing jobs are located in big hospitals. But... there is some hope out there. Don't stay in a place where you are unhappy. Yes it's a tough decision and change IS stressful... but not nearly as stressful as staying in a place where you are abused and disrespected. CHANGE.

Don't do it. I'm a nurse of 10 years and I passionately try to talk every want-to-be nurse out of the profession. I'm in the US and ratios are mostly enforced, we do have union help, and it's STILL horrible almost every day. Find another profession.

Ok. Let me clarify a little further. What if you did a full, thorough assessment initially and then you saw no change in behavior or alertness? Would you still go through EVERY single step by the book?

I hate to tell you this... But it's mostly true. Most nurses I know hate being nurses. It depends on where you work too, though. Beside nursing is the hardest and most taxing branch. There are lots of other options that might not be so dreadful. Also depends on the hospital. For profit hospitals tend to be worse.

I'd like to get some feedback on this from seasoned neuro nurses, since I had an issue with this: When you have an alert and awake patient who has a stable, not fresh, smaller intracranial bleed, when you have every 2 hour neuro checks, do you, in your practice go through the whole head to toe rapid neuro assessment? The patient is alert, talking, looking right at you, joking, using a urinal, turns self, watches TV, etc., able to tell you if he is feeling any numbness, headache, etc... Or, do you use your experience and nursing judgement to deduce most of your assessment just from observing, interacting, taking care of the patient? Your input is appreciated!

@roser13: Way to treat and beat down the desire to learn and good intentions. No offense but nurses like you make young nurses miserable. Why don't you just not answer if you don't want to?! This is a forum for exactly those kinds of questions. Go take a mentor class. It will be good for ya.